Like many diverse countries, Canada houses minority communities
both old and new, and the ensuing tension provokes a familiar dilemma:
Can a state treat all minorities with respect and fairness while
offering above-and-beyond cultural and political protections to the
groups it deems especially worth defending?

Much consternation was had in Quebec recently when figures from the
2016 Canadian census (since shown to be false) appeared to correlate
rising levels of immigration with declining use of French in the
French-speaking province. Some politicians found the timing disturbing -
August marked the 40th anniversary of Quebec's Charter of the
French Language, a sweeping piece of legislation intended to entrench
French in all corners of Quebec life - and began thundering about the
need for even tougher laws.

In Canada's English-speaking provinces, declining rates of
English are generally characterised by Anglo politicians as inevitable -
if not exciting (Toronto Mayor John Tory even proclaimed an official day
to "promote linguistic and cultural diversity"). Yet, English
Canada is not considered the protected reserve of a particular people,
while Ottawa explicitly recognises Quebec as the home of the French
Canadian "nation".

Though unanimously endorsed by Canada's political class, this
notion that Quebec is - and should be - the country's
French-Canadian homeland grinds awkwardly against the egalitarian,
"post-national" multiculturalism that has earned Canada so
much international acclaim in the age of Trump and Brexit. Keeping
Quebec French (however broadly one wants to define that adjective),
after all, implies a certain level of judgement should await residents
who are not.

For the past four years, successive Quebec administrations,
representing two different political parties, have been trying to pass
some manner of public-sector "headgear ban", mostly to prevent
Muslim women from wearing headscarves in government-controlled spaces.
This dislike of "ostentatious displays" of religiosity from
minorities - said to be rooted in the French tradition of aggressive
secularism - has been similarly blamed for the low Quebec poll numbers
of Jagmeet Singh, the popular turban-wearing Indo-Canadian front-runner
to lead the New Democratic Party. Many will find such explanations
overly-intellectualised excuses, of course. Earlier this month, the CBC
aired a documentary about an aggressive Quebec anti-immigrant group
called La Meute, which the CBC characterised as the largest far-right
group in the province "and maybe even the country".

The French Canadians consider themselves a persecuted minority and
have fair historic justification. The French of North America are a
conquered, colonised people who faced systemic discrimination under
Canada's long reign of Anglo-supremacy. Yet, there are many other
minority groups in Canada who can plead a similar case, including the
non-French minority within Quebec itself. Many of Quebec's customs
and laws are intended as French Canadian empowerment after years of
marginalisation, though in practice this can often look like one
minority demanding its cultural grievances supersede all others.

Problems, hypocrisies and paradoxes

Facing a vacancy on Canada's Supreme Court, last October,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau skipped an opportunity to appoint a high
court judge of colour (something Canada has never had) in favour of a
white, French-speaking male because Trudeau had promised Quebec voters a
Supreme Court in which every judge speaks fluent French.

The problems, hypocrisies and paradoxes surrounding les Qubcois may
be a uniquely Canadian issue, but analogies can be found in most western
democracies these days. Like Canada, many western nation-states were
originally set up as limited arrangements of a few ethnic groups, only
to see the drama between those groups appear increasingly dated or
privileged as populations grow more diverse, inhabited by people from
every corner of the globe.

From Catalonia to Corsica, virtually every European nation includes
a historically aggrieved community whose dreams of autonomy threaten
being overshadowed by their country's more modern cultural
cleavages.

Canada offers no useful lesson on how to resolve the tension
between minorities old and new - except perhaps that double standards
and blind spots are a more inescapable part of managing 21st-century
multiculturalism than many may like to believe.

- Washington Post

J.J. McCullough, a political commentator and cartoonist
from Vancouver, is a columnist at Loonie Politics.